What nature does in the course of long periods we do every day when we suddenly change the environment in which some species of living plant is situated.
Jean-Baptiste LamarckAll knowledge that is not the real product of observation, or of consequences deduced from observation, is entirely groundless and illusory.
Jean-Baptiste LamarckNow this circumscribed power, which we have scarcely examined, scarcely studied, this power to whose actions we nearly always attribute an intention and a goal, this power, finally, that always does necessarily the same things in the same circumstances and nevertheless does so many and such admirable ones, is what we call 'nature' .
Jean-Baptiste LamarckAll the acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals, through the influence of the environment in which their race has long been placed, and hence through the influence of the predominant use or permanent disuse of any organ; all these are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise, provided that the acquired modifications are common to both sexes, or at least to the individuals which produce the young.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck